Estabrook Beer Garden

I love the outdoor aspect and the community vibe! Add in German songs with the Florentine Opera and you have an authentic and intoxicating experience!

I LOVE Estabrook overall. The dog park the play ground the hiking trail but especially the beer garden. You can bring your dog and there are plenty of picnic tables to use, so you don’t need to bring too much. I also appreciate the covered areas, they’re great for shade and when it rains unexpectedly. Plus, the view of the river is great, I love listening to the sounds of rapids. (when there is not a polka band playing)
They have great beer options, and a few food options. the only thing I was upset about is that they don’t have paper boats or anything for there food, and I don’t like having to set my half eaten hot dog down on a public table when I need both hands.
You can bring in your own food but no grills. you can bring your dog if there on a leash. There is plenty of green space so if you don’t want to use the tables you can brig your own blanket.
on weekends you can see kids playing and dogs sniffing while people drink in large groups or small.
its a great time I highly recommend it.

The absolute best beer garden within Milwaukee by far. Estabrook provides authentic Hofbrauhaus beer and German food items, which makes this place extra special compared to other beer gardens within the city.
It contains plenty of tables with ample shade either from the trees they sit under or from umbrellas. Nice days are always busy here with lots of children, dogs, and bikers! Outside food is welcome!
You can either choose from a $ 5 glass deposit, or you can bring your own stein to have them fill. Cash only, but they do have an ATM.

Dogs, beer, and Polka! What else do you need in life when the weather is perfect and you are enjoying a fine midwestern day? This is where Anglo-​Saxon people come to fall in love with their ancestry and forget about all the worries in life. Of course all ethnicities are welcome to join the magic that occurs at Estabrook Beer Garden, but those that have been brought up on the strong cultural rituals of Germanic tradition will feel the most at home.
I have visited the beer garden many times and each time I have found something else to love about this place. The people are happy, the beer is cold, food is hot, and the Polka is pumpin’! All the basics for an extremely satisfactory social event are here people.
The menu is very basic and specializes in German based beers, pretzels with mustard/​cheese, and sausages that will leave you asking for more. I am going to rant a little bit about the mustard because it takes me back to my grandma’s homemade mustard that she would send home with me after school. There has never been something that compared to that experience till now.
Along with great food, the band is always playing on the weekend. I will not even try to set the scene or describe this experience so I challenge you to go see the bands play for yourself! It is absolutely worth the trip and an experience to share.

Delightful place in Estabrook Park. Bring cash, walk or bike over here for better enjoyment of the overall park experience. Spring is here indeed. Live music sometimes and a great place to hang out with friends.

Dogpark. Disc golf park. Biergarten. Giant pretzels with great cheese spead. Soccorfield. Rivewalk. I would go there season round, if it wasn’t for Winter. You can buy the Beer Steins for cheap! Excellent place to end your long bike excursion, if you are into exercising and drinking beer.

SUPERB pleasure, and enchanting locale. Quintessential Milwaukee. Live music! Enormous beer steins! Happy customers! Cool beer options. Deposit on the massive beer steins is included in the costs, which was confusing to a number of customers around me. The Beer Garden wasn’t taking cards when we went last weekend. Which induced us inconvenience, BUT saved us from emptying our checking account and not feeling so great the following day. So actually, the no card matter saved us from our lacking of self control selves… If it were not for running out of cash, I Had STILL likely be there!!! Estabrook park is a large, wonderful park thats full of life in the summer. Y’all should go.

Fun place to hang out with friends and kids. There is a playground very close where kids can play and you can drink.

Descriptive phrase: beautiful, fairly authentic park beer garden.
Estabrook has done a great job of turning a portion of the already beautiful park, situated alongside the Milwaukee river, into a German-​styled oasis. With plenty of large communal open-​air tables, you’re sure to find a perfect spot to enjoy your stein of affordable Hofbrau Haus brews. There aren’t many better outdoor places to spend a warm summer’s afternoon near the city.

I’m a beer fan of German ancestry so I appreciate the fact that we have a beer garden in Milwaukee. In fact, now we have more than one beer garden. Unfortunately for Estabrook, more choices makes me not favor Estabrook on busy days because of things like long lines and not getting a table.
Here are some things I do like a lot about the beer garden here:
1. Nice wooden tables
2. The music! Estabrook gets all of the talent.
3. Ability to carry in food to picnic.
4. Location and access — it’s easy to get to and not too far from where most people live. Parking is easy too. Access by bike is pleasant.
Don’t forget your $ 5 deposit! It’s also cash only for beer and those massive pretzels and sausages and such. Since you’ve only got the German beers to choose from, it can get pricey if you’re drinking a lot.

I have never been to a Beer Garden so I am not sure what to think. I had a good time so this is probably going in the right direction. First off I am a native Californian and I am not used to so many green lawns, shrubs and trees. The Beer Garden is located in the most beautiful park which sits next to the Milwaukee River with a waterfall. Since this is a park you can bring your own food/​picnic and also grab some beer while you are at it.
The Beer Garden requires you to give them a $ 5 deposit for the beer glass (weird?). They have a nice selection of German beers. They had a wonderful draught style root beer. I know they serve beer but I couldn’t help myself, I am a big root beer fan. But the root beer was $ 5 bucks, a little expensive and of course I two. Then I had this giant pretzel with Obatzter cheese — not familiar with the cheese but it ended up being a cream cheese like spread it was very good. They have Brats too but I am not a fan. They had this other sausage called a Landjaeger, it is a hard smoked sausage. They do not have any utensils there so we weren’t able to cut it up and share. They also offer wine and soft drinks. When you are done with your beer glass you turn it in and they give you back your $ 5 deposit.
Beer and beauty all in one place, who could ask for more.

This place is great.
Bring in all your own food, take over 8 tables, and hold your picnic here all the while snarking at other patrons because «there’s children present.» Never mind that your picnic is being held at a beer garden (and beer is not generally for children), clearly all other patrons are supposed be on G-​Rated behavior because of your kids. Do it on a Sunday because you know «that it’s just the kids working and no one will stop us.»
Make sure to chase off as many other adults (who want to chill and drink beer) as possible with your picnic because holding a picnic in a business makes so much more sense than reserving one of the many lovely designated picnic spots in Estabrook. People enjoy flying paper plates, spilled food, and repeatedly being jostled by strangers trying to work their ad hoc buffet.
Block as much of the paths as possible with your strollers and allow your children to run rampant through the place. Bonus fun: let you kid knock over other people’s stuff and then act holier than thou.
Bring your own glassware to avoid the $ 5 fee and then hide your own stash of beer to refill after purchasing one of their drinks. It’s fantastic because the staff only check coolers for beer so put that sixer or twelve pack in your stroller and no one is the wiser.
Don’t bother having your dogs trained or even on a leash because everyone loves listening to dog fights.
Seriously Estabrook. Tighten up. I know your thing is family friendly but allowing large private picnics to take over the main area of seating is just wrong. If you must accommodate such groups, send them to back area.

Literally you bring sunshine into my life. Real sunshine, from the sun. No longer must you drink beer under the confines of a BUILDING.
This is one of my favorite haunts at the moment. The beer is tasty. Very tasty. And possibly potent. There is the standard refundable $ 5 stein fee. Cash only, but there is an ATM.
Let’s talk about the things that make it special:
–There’s always people around. Always. Sometimes there’s a softball game going on.
–The pretzel with cheese. Yes. Do it. Do it again. It’s soft and chewy and cheesy.
–The river. Nothing like a little ambiance.
–Plentiful seating, enough umbrellas.
–The live music that sometimes gets a little kooky, but kooky can be good for you.
You can bring your dog, your kid, your anyone, and it’s not weird! You can even drink by yourself and no one cares! You can also bring anything you want to eat, you just can’t grill.
This is a great great spot to have a few.

Oh, you are stellar, Estabrook Beer Garden. Your beer is unquestionably amazing and there’s nothing happier in the world. But in addition, I love you for the following reasons:
1. Atmosphere. It’s a gorgeous setting. If you hit it during a happy hour, you might get treated to some polkas played by this modern German-​ish guy playing an accordion. What the heck could be more relaxing — and fun?
2. Food. Sausages? Yep they’ve got em. Ginormous beer pretzels that are perfect for sharing? Those too. Snacks are awesome!
3. People Watching. It’s supreme here. And it gives you something to talk about with the people around you. We watched a gathering of a large group around tables with tablecloths, bowls of snacks, and mixed ages socialize recently. It was fun to watch them mix and mingle and try to figure out how they knew each other.
4. Surroundings. Guess what people. They are free! This is a public park with tons of areas you can reserve for a picnic or gathering. This in my mind is the best way to enjoy Estabrook. I mean, get your own little slice of this pristine place and you can hop to the beer garden and get a cold one.
What could be more amazing on a perfect summer evening!!!

Fun spot for lunch and a beer. Nice beer garden atmosphere reminiscent of Europe in this scenic park in the NE side of MKE. The pretzel with cheese was very good as were the brat and lands jagger (spelling?) sausage though they had no utensils to cut sausage. You can actually bring your own food. The German beers were tasty. Prosit!

**this is a review for Unilocal does Sunday funday** posted twice accidentally
dogs in bandanas
(brat?)wurst in a salad
Unilocalers in ah, um… giant blow up bubble thingamabobs
just another Summer sunday in milwaukee!
There were so many good dishes at the potluck I can’t even start to mention them all (buuuut the potato casserole was probably my fav.)
Everyone was busy chatting each other up but the canines were a super well behaved group and i didnt hear a woof or bark amongst them. Cats at the next event, maybe? (I’m sure they’d all be totally friendly and good natured to one another. totally.)
A little bummed I wasn’t brave enough to suit up for bubble soccer buuuut… we did all get a Unilocal portable rescue charger so more time at future Unilocal events and less need to go running off in search of a charger.
Thanks Rachel, Unilocal,daisy, porkchop, betsy, and timmy (and their owners:) for a good time!

Great place for a drink and a relaxing summer evening
Cash only so make sure you bring some. The parking lot can get very crowded. It’s right on the bike path so that’s always an option.

On a beautiful summer evening, this place is the spot to be. Do yourself a favor and be there when the sun is setting, you will not regret it. The setting sun over the river (creek? Maybe a creek, regardless it’s running water — I’m sure you get the idea) is sure to put you in a wonderful state of mind. And beer, there’s loads of that too. Tasty German beers too, and food! Tasty German food, although I haven’t had any food yet, I can’t wait to. There was a large pretzel calling my name the whole time, next time baby, I’m coming for you.
A couple helpful hints to know, cash only — remember to bring cash. There is a $ 5 deposit to use a stein, you can bring your own to if you have a sweet fancy beer stein you want to show off. They feature live polka music every now and again as well.
Hope you enjoy your visit to Estabrook as much as I did! PROSIT!

Wow, Milwaukee, I just want to let you know that a lot of cities in this country, in fact maybe most cities, do NOT have beer gardens in their parks. Okay, yeah, they might have temporary set-​ups for Oktoberfest but nothing as awesome as what we’ve got. Estabrook is a permanent, honest to goodness beer garden nestled in between a playground and a softball field overlooking the Milwaukee River. It is hard to beat this. And Estabrook is on the Oak Leaf trail, an enjoyable three mile bike from my house in the Riverwest neighborhood. It might be a tad pricey but if you can resist the giant pretzel (which I know is hard) you’re paying $ 6 for a .5L of delicious Hofbrau beer, not a terrible deal especially when you consider the beautiful surroundings. I will absolutely be back, hopefully for some live music next time! Don’t forget your cash, the ATM has a steep transaction fee.

Ok. You had me at beer garden. Was introduced to this special place by MKE scoot jockeys in 2012 and it gets better every year.
Why: great German beers in really glass steins
What: pretzels, oh the pretzels
Why again: oompah music, green space, dog friendly (lederhosen optional), and the river right behind it.
There are some new gardens that have opened since but my heart belongs here.
Stay thirsty my friends. Stay thirsty!